It Means Everything
by Chainlinks
Summary: Directly postbook. Ralph looks for someone who understands. He doesn't find what he expects. slash


Author's Note: First of all, I don't own the characters or places depicted here, etc. etc. Secondly, here lies slash, so if that offends you, disturbs you or otherwise makes you less than happy, feel free to leave. Thirdly, this takes place promptly after the book ends. This means that they're still book-age, but if you'd like to pretend they're older, feel free of course.

It Means Everything

It was like it had all been just a game. They were standing around laughing about the highlights, grimacing as they touched stretching purple-green bruises. "Wasn't it great, Ralph?" Maurice asked me. "We had a really dandy adventure there, didn't we?"

They didn't seem to realize that less than a day ago they were thirsty for my blood. They didn't seem to realize that Piggy and Simon and probably more that no one even noticed had died for their "adventure". They didn't seem to realize it was real, even though the paint wasn't completely washed from their faces.

Someone knew. Jack wouldn't just forget. Jack was the enemy, the power. He knew it wasn't a game. He'd always known. Now was no different.

It took me a few minutes to find him, sitting against one wall of the ship, talking quietly to Roger. Jack looked up sharply at my approach. The ears and malicious smile of a hunter, wrapped in the pretty face of a choir boy. My heart raced and I didn't doubt that Jack could hear it.

"Hello there, Ralph." Jack's eyes were smouldering coolly even as he pitched his voice to that of an excited adolescent. "Wasn't our adventure wacco?"

The way he says wacco, it's like a foreign word that he's never used but he's using it now just to show he can.

"Shut up, Jack," I said wearily.

"What, you didn't like it?" Roger's voice was tuned to that of a wondering schoolboy's, his eyes wide and innocent even has an evil smirk twisted across his lips.

Jack saw the look on my face and laughed, slipping out of his schoolboy persona. "What? Did you expect us to feel remorse now that we're off the island? Did you look for us trrying to find someone to share your guilty conscience with?"

Roger chimed in, laughing as well. "Did you expect us to be different from the others? We are, of course. Just not in the way you want." His eyes trailed to Jack and he smiles deliberately. "Right, Chief?"

"He's not chief of anything now. The island's far away and there's no more tribes. There's grown-ups here. Besides," I drew myself up taller, "I didn't hear him arguing when I called myself chief when the grown-ups showed up."

"I was scared," Jack said fiercely in a way that let me know that the only reason he's admitting his fear was because he wanted me to know that he wasn't scared anymore. "I was frightened then, just for a moment. You felt it too, didn't you? For one tiny, flashing moment you were a normal studious British boy from the upper-class again."

A bolt of indignation pained my chest. "I was always a normal British boy and I still am! I never lost my proper connection to civilization." I narrowed my eyes. "Unlike you."

Roger laughed, leaning harder against the wall, laughing so hard that he was crying cold tears that served no purpose save aesthetics. "No, no, no. You weren't the link to civilization. That was Piggy and I killed him."

Jack just smiled indulgently at Roger, making no contributions to the bizarre converstation.

"I'm still the chief, civilized Brit or not. You still didn't argue," I countered.

"Wrong," Jack answered simply.

Frustration boiled my blood. "It's stupid! How can there be a chief with no tribe, no conch, no island?"

A slow smile spread across Jack's face again. "The island is still a part of us, and by denying that you've renounced any claim of chiefdom you might have had."

"Damn you and your nonsense logic to hell, Merridew."

"I'm past damned. You are too, Ralph, no matter how much you want to plead innocent, you're one of us. You weren't a link to civilization as you'd like to believe. You were just another savage. Maybe a little more dignified, a little more stubborn, a lot more self-righteous, but still a savage."

"I wasn't and I'm not!"

"You helped kill Simon, didn't you?" Jack's eyes burned with a malicious satisfaction, burning holes through me.

"That was a mistake and it's in the past," I said bravely. I decided to walk away from them. Jack was making too many well-defined lines blurry and Roger was just getting on my nerves.

Jack caught my shoulder before I'd taken two full steps. He pulled me forward roughly and smashed his lips against mine, then yanked away. I think it was supposed to be a kiss. Maybe not. It wasn't nice.

He smiled at me strangely, as if he was reading my thoughts, or trying to. "That," he said smugly, 'is what we are." I gave him a puzzled look, an invitation to elaborate.

Roger spoke in a voice smoother, deeper, richer than I remembered, almost beautiful in a so-masculine way. "Ralph, don't you get it? We're savage. Barbaric. You can go back to your flowery romances, your polite manners, your mind-numbing future, but no matter how hard you try to forget this fantastically awful adventure of yours, you won't. It will always be with you. You can denounce the iland, denounce our true culture, denounce the beast, denounce our tribes, our hunts, denounce it all a thousand times over! It won't matter. You're a part of the island and it won't let you escape. None of us really will, but you, Jack and I most of all. We're too much a part of it now."

Roger kissed me then. It wasn't like Jack's attempt. It was, I think, what Jack had intended. It was harsh, but exotic. Tangy. Lovely, but hard, awful. Cold, but so hot. I gasped against Roger's mouth and he growled, gripping my shoulders and roughly pinning my shoulders against the wall of the ship. The wall was freezing and a violent shiver ran through my body. Roger pressed against me, his hips pushing bruisingly to mine, rocking in a horrible, sinful, delicious way.

He stopped the kiss for a moment to take a few gasps of air. In that moment, I realized that I hadn't fought Roger. Ashamed, I immedietly began to pull away from his hands. I heard Jack gasp suddenly, and his voice, the one he used to brag could hit middle C, was a deep and husky growl. "Ralph," he muttered.

There were footsteps, loud clanking on the metal of the ship's floor. "Hey Ralph? Ralph?" It was Maurice's voice, about to turn the corner to where Roger, Jack and I were. Roger reluctantly pulled off of me. Jack did as well, though I didn't remember Jack being so close.

Maurice came into sight, looking worried. "You boys weren't fighting were you?" he asked, taking in my sweaty, messy hair and -- did I have a split lip? yes -- my broken, bleeding lip, the result of Roger's teeth on my chapped lips.

"It's fine," Jack said airily. "We've got it mostly worked out." Roger nodded in mute agreement, a faint smile ghosting his lips.

"Alright," Maurice said uneasily. He turned back to me. "Hey, Ralph. You left kind of quickly back there. You aren't still mad about the island thing, are you?" His hazel eyes went wide, as if he hadn't even considered this as a plausible reason until now.

"No, don't worry about it," I said. It was easier to say it than I thought it would be. "I was shaken up, but I'm fine now." I swung an arm over Maurice's shoulder and I led him away.

I chanced a look back, behind me.

Roger and Jack were kissing savagely. Maurice followed my line of vision. "They do that a lot," he whispered, flushing as if the mere admission was a guilty pleasure.

It was strange seeing Roger and Jack in that embrace. I knew without a doubt that eventually, maybe years from now but maybe only a few weeks, the island will call me back and I'll join them.

A part of me tingled in anticipation for that "someday".


End file.
